Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 10, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba Your present is changing their future. You are transforming child health care and research in Manitoba. #GiveBetterFutures DONATE TODAY AT: goodbear.ca W HEN Beausejour Mayor Ray Schirle had to go to an emer- gency room last fall, he was forced to seek help in a community nearly 30 minutes down the road. The ER at the town’s hospital was closed that Sunday, meaning the near- est site for Schirle or any resident in medical distress was in Selkirk. “Every minute counts when it comes to people’s health, especially when it’s an emergency,” he told the Free Press Friday. Schirle’s experience is a familiar tale for residents of some rural and northern communities that continue to deal with temporary or indefinite ER closures due to staff shortages. “It’s not just Beausejour. It’s right across Manitoba,” he said. A Doctors Manitoba analysis showed 18 rural or northern hospitals are reli- ably open 24-7 in August, 25 are open part-time or experiencing frequent gaps in coverage and 25 are closed due to temporary or long-term suspen- sions of service. This month, Beausejour’s ER is open eight days out of 31 — from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. — with no coverage on week- ends, according to a schedule on Inter- lake-Eastern Regional Health Author- ity’s website. Schirle said it’s his understanding the ER, which serves the community of 3,000 people and a wider area in eastern Manitoba, has less coverage this summer than last. “The safety and health of our residents is being compromised,” he said. Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said critical staff shortages are driving ER closures in smaller communities. “Unfortunately, one of the worst things coming out of this is the residents don’t have access to health care in their own communities and they have to travel to get it,” she said. Jackson said some understaffed ERs are forced to close when employ- ees, who are overworked, take “well- deserved” vacations. She predicted closures will continue until staffing ranks are bolstered. “The answer is we need more nurs- es, which is not going to be a short- term answer, because we have a finite pool of nurses in this province,” said Jackson. Aside from waiting for new gradu- ates to enter the public health-care system, Manitoba must do everything it can to retain the nurses it already has, she added. “They are our only resource until we can bolster our nursing numbers,” she said. Jackson hopes the public system will be able to bring back nurses who left for private agencies or reluctantly re- tired due to crises in health care. MNU said recent data showed nurs- ing vacancy rates of 34.4 per cent in Northern Health Region and 31.6 per cent in Interlake-Eastern. Rates for Prairie Mountain Health and Southern Health-Santé Sud were 29.4 per cent and 26.2 per cent, respectively. The ER at Carberry’s hospital re- opened in May, after closing indefin- itely last year. The province hired three physicians to work on rotation. One of the doctors, who travelled from Ottawa to work two weeks every month, has decided not to return for personal reasons, said Carberry May- or Ray Muirhead. That left gaps in August, while Prai- rie Mountain Health looks for a re- placement, he said. The ER is closed five days this week, all next week and the last week of the month, according to the region- al health authority’s online schedule. “We had to fill those gaps as best we could,” said Muirhead. “It’s not just the doctors. You need to have the lab and nursing staff on site, too.” Other than that, everything has been going well since the ER reopened, he said. For the remainder of August, Hami- ota’s ER is open just six days, but only one of those days has 24-hour cover- age. “It really does show up quite a bit in the summer, with staff taking holidays and different things like that playing into it,” Mayor Randy Lints said of the closures. Despite this month’s gaps, things are looking up for the local health cen- tre in the long-term, said Lints. He said Prairie Mountain Health provided an international medical graduate in February and another doc- tor is being recruited from the U.K. Hamiota is one of a few south- western communities to hire Winni- peg-based firm Waterford Global to recruit doctors, at a cost of more than $100,000. The health authority is covering about half of the bill. Funds were also provided by the Hamiota Health Cen- tre Foundation. The fact municipalities are getting directly involved in recruiting efforts is a major shift from the past, said Lints. “We’ve all got to work together to get out of this hole,” he said. The NDP government has set a tar- get of hiring 1,000 health-care work- ers, including 100 doctors and 210 nurses, this year. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the province wants a “significant number” of those employees to be in rural areas. Asagwara met last week with mu- nicipal councils, including Hamiota’s leadership, to identify communities’ needs and potential solutions. “We’ve been working really hard for months directly with communities to support them to be able to retain and recruit health-care staff,” the minis- ter said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all (solution).” The government recently expanded the nurse float pool, which aims to attract staff from private agencies. It is also looking to boost the number of health-care training seats in rural areas. Asagwara cautioned it will take time to ease staff shortages. Spokespeople for Prairie Mountain Health and Southern Health-Santé Sud said the regional authorities are working with the province, commun- ities and others to recruit and retain staff. “Emergency department services are temporarily suspended at times when the necessary complement of health-care providers cannot be se- cured to keep an ED safely open,” a Prairie Mountain spokesperson wrote in an email. Northern Health Region said it has not had any new closures of ERs this year. chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca TOP NEWS A3 SATURDAY AUGUST 10, 2024 ● ASSOCIATE EDITOR, NEWS: STACEY THIDRICKSON 204-697-7292 ● CITY.DESK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM INTERLAKE-EASTERN REGIONAL HEALTH AUTHORITY Beausejour Health Centre’s emergency room will only be open for eight days out of 31 in August, with no coverage at night or on weekends. FACEBOOK Beausejour Mayor Ray Schirle had to travel to Selkirk for emergency care last fall. MIKE DEAL / FREE PRESS FILES Greg Nesbitt, PC MLA for Riding Mountain, says he hasn’t breached ethics guide- lines and wasn’t aware of the contract in question, which was signed last year. NDP accuses Tory of failing to disclose government contract MANITOBA New Democrats are accus- ing a member of the Progressive Conserv- atives of violating ethics guidelines — a charge the Tories say is false. Mike Moyes, the NDP’s caucus chair, has filed a complaint with the provincial ethics commissioner. He says Tory legislature member Greg Nesbitt is a shareholder and officer in a company that owns a hotel and conference centre in Russell, which signed a $50,000 contract last December to rent space to the government. Nesbitt’s shares in the company are list- ed in mandatory disclosure statements filed with the ethics commissioner, but the contract is not. Nesbitt, who was first elected in 2016, says he sold his shares in the hotel com- pany in 2018 under an 11-year buyout that is not yet complete. He says he has had nothing to do with workings at the Russell Inn and has con- tinued to list the shares under the advice of the ethics commissioner until the financial transaction is finished. “I talk with the ethics commissioner every year on this. He obviously knew I was involved with the Russell Inn back in 2016,” Nesbitt said Friday. Nesbitt said he was not aware of the con- tract signed last year and was told by the ethics commissioner that he is not required to reveal any contracts between the hotel company and the government. The accusation is the latest battle over disclosure statements that all Manitoba legislature members must file with the commissioner. In June, Nesbitt accused NDP cabinet minister Ian Bushie of hiding the fact he has a contract with the provincial govern- ment. Bushie is the sole proprietor of Grand- pa George’s, a family-run gas station and convenience store that was listed in April as having received a government contract worth up to $100,000. Bushie said he did not disclose the con- tract because he did not believe it was re- quired. He said the contract is to supply grocer- ies and goods for wildfire crews and has been renewed consistently since it was first signed several years ago. He also said that while the contract is listed as worth up to $100,000, the actual amount paid is very small as it depends on fire activity and how much food and goods are needed in any given year. The ethics commissioner has not yet ruled on that complaint. — The Canadian Press STEVE LAMBERT Ethics commissioner hasn’t yet ruled on pair of complaints Amid continuing staff shortages, ‘safety and health of our residents being compromised’ CHRIS KITCHING Rural communities struggle with ER closures ;